OK, I'm going to try not to piss anyone off here. We'll see how this goes.
So, we recently got a piece of mail that was intended for my neighbor, who's a sweet lil older lady. It was a postcard reminding her about a meeting of her "Homemaker's Club." My partner held it up and read it to me while I smirked at the picture on the other side of a sweet lil gal in a gingham dress and bonnet, riding a horse (this is Wyoming, after all) and carrying a charming lil picnic basket. We were just being smart-asses, of course, but it got me thinking.
My neighbor is married to a guy who used to run one of the more successful plumbing businesses in town, and she never worked outside the home. So no doubt she's been a part of this group forever. I get that if you're a stay-a-home-mom-or-dad you want a title that shows that your job is valuable. But, for the first time in my life, it strikes me as odd to refer to stay-at-home moms and dads as "homemakers." It seems like it implies a couple of things.
First, it seems to imply that those of us who work outside the home are not homemakers too. Like we live in our cars or something. I mean, my partner and I both work outside the home, but we also do what seems like insane amounts of work at home. We don't have a maid or a cook. You might suggest that being called a "working mom" is meant to capture all this work I do alongside my paid labor outside the home. But what about my partner's work? He does (almost) as much housework and childcare as I do, but nobody sympathetically refers to him as a "working dad" or suggests that he needs a relaxing spa day because of it. No, I think we're clearly not thought of as homemakers, and I'm not sure what I think of that.
Second, in this town at least, the title of homemaker also seems to imply money and privilege. Like just getting that card in your mailbox sends the message that you don't have to work outside the home, lucky you. Your kids are the privileged ones getting the premium mom-care and sleeping on freshly ironed sheets. The funny thing is that this idea is so widely and unreflectively accepted. In reality, some of the kids I've known who had homemaker moms were behind in their social development as compared to their peers who were in daycare. My stepdaughter is insanely articulate with a huge vocabulary, and none of the kids of stay-at-home-moms that I know can match this. She's also reading- and math-ready at the age of 4, so it seems like the structure and exposure to other kids and adults at daycare has been good for her.
Anyway, it just sort of struck me that describing parents (or childless spouses) who don't work as "homemakers" is kind of weird. I'm a homemaker too, and so is my partner. We just have other jobs as well.
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I think that defining people as "homemakers" comes from the fact that people in Canada and the US define themselves largely by their jobs. Think about it: when you meet someone new, one of the first questions asked is "so, what do you do?", right? And while you do a lot of things that aren't related to your job outside the home, your answer most likely wouldn't include any of those things.
Also, as you noted, the title "homemaker" includes the childless/childfree. And "homemaker" sounds a heck of a lot better than "unemployed".
Is it the best term? Maybe not, but it's the best one we've got at the moment.
I think that defining people as "homemakers" comes from the fact that people in Canada and the US define themselves largely by their jobs. Think about it: when you meet someone new, one of the first questions asked is "so, what do you do?", right? And while you do a lot of things that aren't related to your job outside the home, your answer most likely wouldn't include any of those things.
Also, as you noted, the title "homemaker" includes the childless/childfree. And "homemaker" sounds a heck of a lot better than "unemployed".
Is it the best term? Maybe not, but it's the best one we've got at the moment.
The flip side is that in most places, homemakers seem to be looked down upon, especially by women in the workforce, and may need tgat club for support, and to make friends they may not meet as they don't work outside the home. My mom was a stay-at-home while me and my two younger sibs were little, and was constantly treated as if it was the most worthless, regressive thing she could do. In high school, she had a teacher who was very much a part of the radical feminist wave, and asked her students what they wanted to do when they grew up - when my mom said she wanted to be a mother, this teacher belittled her in front of the class, saying she had been brainwashed by patriarchal society. My mom's response? She didn't think anything was more important than shaping a new generation. She is a smart, open-minded woman who has raised my sister and I to be strong-willed and independent, amd my little brother is turning into an intelligent young man who is the most open-minded kid his age (13) that I know. My mom now works at a retirement home and loves it, my sister us getting her GED and working as an NA at that nursing home and is soon to be living on her own as soon as she's 18, and I've finished college with a degree in theatre. I think some people forget that just as working outside the home was a monumental step for women, the goal was (and is) to give people the ability to choose what they want in their lives, and for some, the choice to be a homemaker and raise children is what fits them.
I experienced my mother as married "homemaker" and as a divorced "woman working outside of the home".
I have also had both roles in my life, though most of my parenting years were as a single mom.
I wouldn't compare the many different choices or say one is better than the other. They are different.
You can be secure in your choices and respect the choices others made. Respect that woman's role even if she did not have as many choices.
Having one person at home focusing on all things domestic is nice, but, not necessary. It is often, not always, a matter of privilege (there are poor folk homemakers too). Does that person deserve the title homemaker? Hell yes!
Do you?
Really? Do you really want that? Do you really think it's the same? Or did you make a different choice that happens to include having a nice home?
Homemaker is a much nicer title than housewife.
Hara, I don't think I was trying to say that one choice is better than the other. I did mention that in this social context the title implies privilege, but I wasn't saying that I think it's a better choice. I also think that my neighbor was making these choices in a time when things were quite different than they are now. And I agree that homemaker is a nicer title than houswife.
But I'm not sure why I wouldn't "deserve" the title just because I also work outside the home. My partner and I do a lot of work to keep our household going. The laundry doesn't wash itself, and the diapers don't change themselves. So why wouldn't we "deserve" this title?